Tuesday, November 21, 2006

state terror

Student tasered for failing to produce ID - a student at UCLA was tasered by police (they have campus police???) for failing to produce identification. Whether or not he should have complied with the request for ID (it was a routine check because it was late at night, but he thought he had been singled out because of his Middle eastern appearance), the officers certainly used excessive force, as he had gone limp and laid down, which was not presenting a physical threat to the police.

In order to get into our campus library, your student card is automatically scanned at the door; you don't need police officers to go round checking IDs, even if it is late at night. It's fair enough requiring ID to access specific resources like libraries, but you should require it of everyone, not selected individuals.

There's also a video of the incident available from YouTube.

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